I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to labels. The invention relates specifically to an expanded content label having a strategically located release-reseal system for containers having dimensions that may be difficult to label.
II. Related Art
In the packaging and printing arts and, in particular in the commercial printed label art for labeling and decorating consumer products, there exists a continual demand for labels and decorations which not only appeal to consumers, but also bear ever increasing amounts of printed information. For example, labels for identification of consumer health care and pharmaceutical products are often required by governmental regulations to describe in painstaking detail their compositions and ingredients. As new food and drug laws are passed, regulations require the inclusion of increasing amounts of label information. Manufacturers of consumer products and their packaging vendors have devised various schemes for inclusion of such extensive information. Among these are simply printing the information in small type on product container boxes or cartons, or including information insert sheets within the boxes or cartons. Obvious drawbacks to these schemes include increased packaging costs associated with boxes and cartons, and the fact that boxes, cartons, and insert sheets are often promptly discarded by a consumer and therefore, do not remain with their respective products during product lifetimes.
To provide increased printed information on labels, various forms of so-called “expanded content” labels have been proposed. As used here throughout, “expanded content labels” or ECLs” are intended to include “extended text” labels, “booklet” type labels, and multi-layered or multi-ply labels, all describing labels having an appearance or effect of including multiple plies.
The expanded content type of label has gained wide popularity, wherein a base ply is joined to a top ply via an adhesive coupling or “hinge” between the two plies. Such labels normally contain two or more material plies hinged together using a pressure-sensitive adhesive. The hinge is formed along one margin. A pressure-sensitive release-reseal system is used along the opposite margin. For example, Kaufmann in U.S. Pat. No. 5,264,265; Hill et al in U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,587; and Coward et al in U.S. Pat. No. 5,904,973 show label constructions of this type.
The application of known ECLs to some containers, however, has been problematic. For instance, a container such as a deodorant barrel having an elliptical cross-section may have, largely depending on the overall size of the container, a relatively short or “sharp” radius of curvature near the foci thereof. In a conventional ECL, the release-reseal system is often located near one of the foci and may inadvertently become opened due to an absence of a relatively flat container surface underlying the release-reseal system of the label. Such containers, then, have been difficult to successfully label because of a tendency for extended content labels to lift off at the hinge or spontaneously “pop open” or be simply too easy to open on such containers.
Therefore, it would be decidedly advantageous to provide an ECL that remained closed on a container of relatively small or “sharp” radii of curvature, until it was intentionally opened by a user. It would also be advantageous for such an ECL to be capable of being efficiently produced using an in-line web press manufacturing method.